My Final Monday

Monday morning, on the train, and I can hardly believe this is my last week at Marc Jacobs. If you had told me, May 31st, on that 7:21 train, that this internship would fly by this fast, would have been hard pressed to believe you. I am happy to say, though, that I have gotten so much more out of this experience than I ever thought I would.

First off, I have to admit that I have such a heightened respect for people who commute everyday to and from New York. They are a dedicated bunch who put up with the daily struggle and, more often than not, the unexpected delay. If the situation ever arose where I had to do this on a daily basis, I know I could; but for now, thank goodness it was only for 12 weeks.

I also have a whole new outlook on the fashion industry as a whole. Being a newcomer to the world of retail, I never looked much past the designers themselves. Besides, that's the most glamourous part anyways, isn't it?  But being behind the scenes in the business department at Marc has shown me that the key players are sometimes the women behind the computer screens, scrambling to come up with assortment plans for their next meeting with Imagine X Department Store in Hong Kong. And being able to participate in this, even though it might seem to them like everyday tasks, was an awesome experience for me. Not to go without mention, these business department women are also quite the fashionistas. I didn't meet one person at Marc who didn't have a passion for the brand.

With that being said, this leads me to my last revelation of this final Monday. On my way out of the office on Friday I snapped this picture:

This might seem like just a bunch of sewing machines older than the ones you used in your middle school home-ec class, and in fact, they probably are. But these oldies but goodies reminded me that fashion and retail are living, breathing entities. They are constantly changing, and deserve that much respect at least, from every department, client, and customer. Those bolts of fabric leaning casually against the wall are waiting to be turned into next season's hit bag. Those boxes of thread next to the business departments binder supply will be used later to tailor that dress for Sarah Jessica Parker so she looks smashing in August's photo shoot for Vogue. And who knows, maybe she'll love the dress so much she'll walk off the set with it.  Talk about merchandise marketing right there. (I'm pretty sure this actually happened. Perks of sharing a room with part of the logistics team).

I'm about to pull into Newark and switch to the PATH where things can get pretty hairy in terms of iPad typing. But there are so many more things I want to talk about, now that I can look back on this summer as a whole, so expect some more posts soon!